Testing devices for examining populated electronic circuit boards for defects and function prior to installation in electronic devices have been both known and commercially available for a long time. In devices of this type, contact pins or needles are pressed onto predetermined sites (contact positions) of the circuit board and then loaded by a test computer with test signals according to a predetermined control to ascertain whether the populated circuit board is functioning properly. To establish perfect electrical contact between the contact needles and contact points on a circuit board which picks off a large number of contact positions, several thousand contact needles are often necessary or possible.
Testing devices of this type are described, for example, in DE 11 2006 003 034 T5 as well as DE 196 46 252 A1 or DE 44 16 151 B. However, each of these devices requires that the circuit boards being tested are precisely matched to the test pins. The necessity of a plethora of tests of this type being performed within a temporal unit entails considerable problems when positioning the circuit board in relation to the test pins.
The present invention relates, however, not only to the production and processing of circuit boards, but also to the production and processing of any given workpieces.